A Short Guide to the Internet’s Biggest Enemies

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) released its annual “Enemies of the Internet” index this week—a ranking first launched in 2006intended to track countries that repress online speech, intimidate and arrest bloggers, and conduct surveillance of their citizens.Some countries have been mainstays on the annual index, while others have been able to work their way off the list.Two countries particularly deserving of praise in this area are Tunisia and Myanmar (Burma), both of which have stopped censoring the Internet in recent years and are headed in the right direction toward Internet freedom.

In the former category are some of the world’s worst offenders: Cuba, North Korea, China, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Vietnam, Belarus, Bahrain, Turkmenistan, Syria. Nearly every one of these countries has amped up their online repression in recent years, from implementing sophisticated surveillance (Syria) to utilizing targeted surveillance tools (Vietnam) to increasing crackdowns on online speech (Saudi Arabia). These are countries where, despite advocacy efforts by local and international groups, no progress has been made.

The newcomers

A third, perhaps even more disheartening category, is the list of countries new to this year's index. A motley crew, these nations have all taken new, harsh approaches to restricting speech or monitoring citizens:

Russia: As RSF writes, Russia has been on a downward slope for more than a decade. Until fairly recently, however, the Russian government did not directly censor the Internet, preferring instead to employ subtle strategies to control online discourse. In 2012, that changed, when the Russian Duma overwhelmingly passed a bill allowing the creation of a national blacklist of websites. Today, that blacklist continues to grow, while the government continues to seek new ways of limiting online speech.

Pakistan: We’ve expressed concerns about Pakistan manytimesbefore, so we’re glad to see the country called out for its repressive behavior. Despite significant opposition from inside the country, the Pakistan Telecommunications Authority continues to add sites to its opaque blacklist, most notably YouTube following the ‘Innocence of Muslims’ debacle in 2012. Efforts from local activists have also demonstrated the willingness of foreign companies—in particular Canadian company Netsweeper—to aid in Pakistan’s repression of speech.

United Kingdom: The European nation has been dubbed by RSF as the “world champion of surveillance” for its recently-revealed depraved strategies for spying on individuals worldwide. The UK also joins countries like Ethiopia and Morocco in using terrorism laws to go after journalists. Not noted by RSF, but also important, is the fact that the UK is also cracking down on legal pornography, forcing Internet users to opt-in with their ISP if they wish to view it and creating a slippery slope toward overblocking. This is in addition to the government’s use of an opaque, shadowy NGO to identify child sexual abuse images, sometimes resulting instead in censorship of legitimate speech.

India: A country that has long censored certain types of speech, it’s surprising that India has never made it to RSF’s list before. Still, in the past two years, things have gotten significantly worse as the Indian government has enacted new laws to limit online speech and has slouched toward the NSA at a time when its neighbors have spoken out against surveillance.

Morocco: The North African nation’s approach to the Internet had improved somewhat in recent years, with the government unblocking sites that were formerly censored. The arrest of journalist Ali Anouzla in September 2013 and subsequent blocking of Lakome, the publication he co-founded, however, seems to signal a new era. Activists have expressed concern that bad legislation is just around the corner.

We urge the countries that find themselves on RSF's “Enemies of the Internet” list this year—as well as those that are glaringly missing from the list—to take note of countries, such as Tunisia and Myanmar (Burma), who have taken steps to ameliorate violations of Internet freedom and remove themselves from RSF's annual index.

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